Patch 5.3 - Heroic Scenario Group Requirement
The official notes have listed the group requirement for Heroic Scenarios for some time, but it was never actually in game until recently. Previously you were able to queue and get a random group to complete the scenario, but now you need 2 other players.

Heroic Scenarios and Dungeons

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We consider the entire forums (all of them) to be an opportunity for you all to share your ideas/constructive feedback etc. with us. We're always reading. It's also worth noting that Heroic Scenarios are a first go for us in giving players who want a bit more of a challenge within the Scenarios a way to get it. That said, that doesn't mean that these are the last "new" thing we'll ever add to the game. We're always looking at new ideas or concepts to push the gameplay within World of Warcraft further. We can't talk about all those ideas until we know we are able to make them work and are going to implement them (or at least we try not to if we can), but that doesn't mean we aren't listening or planning on our end too.

I understand that many people would like new dungeons and we've addressed this a few times now, but at this point in time, we're not adding them. We have a lot of other things that we're putting efforts into that we think will be great additions to the game. Again, we're not ready to talk about those just yet, but once we can share that information with you all, we will. For now, we wanted to share a bit more about what the new Scenarios will bring.

If you haven't tried them on the PTR, you may just want to give it a shot. They're fun and add some great story elements as well.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

ClassesLook at monk attack animations. The players' reward for doing their role correctly is that their screen looks beautiful. Cont
We are working long term on making rogue and warrior attacks cooler, since we agree that they look the most bland while fighting. (Source)

Buttons bloat: are we in a good place now or some class still need less active abilities (taking into account 5.3 PTR change)?
I think just about every class has too many buttons. (Source)

Out of curiosity, how do you internally measure when one healer is too weak or powerful then?
We try to look at the data lot of different ways: HPS during burst moments, dependence on mana CDs, synergy among healers, etc. (Source)
If it was as simple as manipulating spec score or whatever, we could automate the entire balance process. (Source)
People dedicate their lives to understanding large data sets. It's why I always say there isn't a "thermometer" for DPS. (Source)
I don't mean to imply that data aren't useful -- they are! But you can't bubble up the data into a number that measures awesomeness. (Source)
We also do a lot of internal tests too, because we have a lot more tools at our disposal than target dummies. (Source)

How happy are you with the combo point style of resource management?
Happy. We think it's more interesting than cooldown-driven rotations. (Source)

Since spec/stats/ilvl dictate survivability in PVP/PVE more than anything now, ever think about abolishing diff armor types?
As in mail vs. cloth? If anything, I wish that distinction was more meaningful. (Source)

Would it be possible to make Divine protection usable for Holy Palas when stunned like PS, Barkskin and Life cocoon?
In general we don't like having lots of counters to counters. (Source)
Stuns are intended to be scary. We'd rather nerf them than provide a ton of ways to mitigate or ignore them. (Source)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Damage adjustments to FeS and SS to discourage festerblight? Or just datamine error? Feel like its more of a trinket problem..
We're okay with Festerblight as a high risk moderate reward thing. There was a possibility it would be mandatory. (Source)

Frost DKs are scaling very poorly. I know you hate this word but I'm sick of getting no response via twitter and no changes.
How much DPS are you failing to gain over the course of ToT because of ilevel scaling? 10%? 5%? 1%? (Source)
If Frost DKs appear to be doing poorly it's probably because Unholy is a viable alternative now and lots are trying it. (Source)

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Hey GC,What are your thoughts on Combustion? It is overly complicated to get the perfect ignite, & you're screwed if you fail.
What if you just went for a good Ignite instead of a perfect Ignite? (Source)
We generally like having options for a lot of extra work for small rewards. Small keeps them staying optional. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Agreed on Eternal Flame being a problem, but why no plans to adjust it in 5.3?
First, we agree with the supposition that the previous set bonus really propped up that healing style. (Source)
Second, it would be a big change that would require some relearning on the part of paladins and rebalancing on the part of design. (Source)
Better to try something on a 5.4 PTR, when there will be a lot of healers trying out new bosses (compared to 5.3's quieter PTR). (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)attonement is a fail to the class in conjuntion with ToT Damange Increased bosses, must reconsider to delete this feature.
I don't understand why. Atonement is fun and useful. It's just a little OP at the moment (even on non-damage buffed bosses). (Source)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Rescinding one of my last tweets about PTR rogue ArP change. Will there be a tool tip saying 50%pvp?
There will be a 50% cap on Find Weakness in PvP, whether it's tooltipped or not. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Do you guys have plans on making Heroic leap usable up hills? Like leaping up a hill to peel seems pretty heroic yes?
It's just a technical limitation because people were leaping up walls and out of BGs. #thisiswhyyoucanthavenicethings (Source)

Warlock Card Reveal: Void Terror
The new cards have already been added to the wiki!

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

In this Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft card reveal, we deal out a card that’s bound to make your enemies tremble and quake before you—the Void Terror.

The indomitable Warlock Gul’dan stops at nothing in his pursuit of power, and the whisper of his name strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies. Among all his devices of dread, one card in his arsenal is especially terrifying.

THIS CARD.

The Void Terror is able to absorb the minions next to him upon being summoned. Are you in control of a pair of feeble murlocs? Not anymore. Now you have a giant Void Terror. What happened to those night elves you had? Now they have become one with the void.

Void Terror can also help make your forces less vulnerable to Area of Effect (AoE) spells. Hellfire would cripple a deck filled with small minions....

Void Terror can help turn that army of puny minions into a huge, shadowy behemoth. That 3-damage blast of flame would barely faze your big blue demon on his path of destruction.

This minion really shines when you can convert single-turn, temporary effects like Power Overwhelming into a permanent bonus.

Give one of your puny minions a taste of SUPREME POWER, let him strike for a single, glorious attack, and then let the Void Terror suck his newly enhanced essence into his being. (Don’t be sad, it was going to die anyway.) In fact, a quick death in the Void is probably more pleasant than the alternative. Now that temporary +4/+4 bonus lives forever within the Void Terror!

When playing as Gul’dan, your role is not to care for the well-being of your minions. They are TOOLS for you to manipulate on your way to victory, and to be fed to the demons you’ll summon from the Void. Like any good tool, the purpose they serve is yours and yours alone.

I just wouldn’t get too close to this one if I were you. He looks hungry.

OpenRaid Event - Icy VeinsOpenRaid is running an event for both US / EU Horde players that will give you a chance to raid with some of the Icy Veins staff, as well as ask questions. Let us know if there are other groups you would like to see doing a similar event.

There’s a ton of content worth experiencing in Mists of Pandaria—but if you’re leveling alts or just looking to get to the highest gear levels to see the newest content, the “best” route is not always clear. We get a lot of questions on what to focus on, so hopefully this article can provide some helpful guidance.

Back in the Day
In the initial months after Mists of Pandaria launched, the primary method to gear up a new level 90 was to run Scenarios and Heroic dungeons, and then do daily quests (beginning with Golden Lotus and Klaxxi, and then progressing to Shado-Pan and August Celestials) to earn reputation to unlock the vendors that sold higher-level epics. Along the way, players would qualify for the Raid Finder version of Mogu’shan Vaults, and then eventually the Raid Finder versions of Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring, supplementing the gear they unlocked and purchased with Valor Points.

While all of that content, along with the original reputation vendors and associated progression, remains in the game, patch 5.2 introduced several new, more efficient ways to get a fresh level 90 caught up and ready to jump right into the Throne of Thunder raid.

Get to ‘da Island!
The core of the current gearing system revolves around the new Isle of Thunder, and the vastly accelerated rate at which Elder Charms of Good Fortune can be obtained on the Isle. Elder Charms are used for bonus rolls when defeating raid bosses from the expansion’s first set of raids—Mogu’shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, Terrace of Endless Spring—as well as Mists of Pandaria’s original world bosses, Sha of Anger and Galleon. By obtaining Elder Charms, defeating bosses, and using bonus rolls, you’ll receive more chances to acquire upgrades, helping you gear up at a faster pace.

The Isle of Thunder also offers other ways to acquire Elder Charms. By defeating rare-spawn enemies on the Isle of Thunder, looting a Trove of the Thunder King, or defeating common enemies, players can receive a Key to the Palace of Lei Shen (one per week, with a small chance at extras from the coffers awarded at the conclusion of daily quest arcs). Players can take the key to Taoshi in the Shado-Pan encampment located in the swamp at the center of the Isle for a chance to do a Treasure Room run. In these runs, players have 5 minutes to open as many chests as possible and make it as far as they can through a dangerous, trap-laden vault. These runs are not only a ton of fun, but can be extremely lucrative in providing gold and Elder Charms. Foregoing a race to the finish line and instead systematically opening every chest you can get your hands on will likely yield a significant number of Elder Charms—it’s not uncommon to emerge from a single run with over a dozen. Additional Elder Charms can be obtained by using Incantations that also drop from creatures on the Isle and taking them to the graveyard in the mogu ruins on the west side of the Isle.

In 5.2, we significantly increased drop rates in the Raid Finder versions of Mogu’shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, and Terrace of Endless Spring, so it’s quite possible to walk into the Raid Finder and have enough Elder Charms to use a bonus roll on every boss you kill (with greatly increased drop chances) for a tremendous loot yield. You can also run Raid Finder more than once per week if you have more Elder Charms. You won’t receive normal drops from the boss, but your bonus rolls will have a chance of rewarding an item.

Misc. Stuff We Couldn’t Think of a Title For
If you’re into PvP, recent changes have made PvE gear pretty decent in PvP, and vice-versa. Outside of sockets and set bonuses, you can get a bunch of Honor (or Justice Points, and covert them to Honor at the Justice Trade Good vendors in Orgrimmar and Stormwind) and buy Item Level (ilvl) 476 PvP gear to help fill in any gaps and help you get into the higher rungs of PvE content.

Like Sha of Anger, the world boss Galleon now respawns much more frequently. The world boss Nalak is also now accessible on the Isle of Thunder, and the Shado-Pan Assault vendor is selling a neckpiece for Valor Points with no additional reputation requirements. In addition, the Isle of Thunder factions sell an ilvl 476 belt for gold at Honored reputation, which makes doing their dailies pretty enticing.

What the Future Holds
In Patch 5.3: Escalation, you’ll head to the Barrens and participate in an uprising that will lead to the ultimate challenges in 5.4, and a variety of patch 5.3 content will award ilvl 476 to ilvl 489 items for participating in and completing quests. It’s important to note that the 5.3 world event will only be available for a limited time, as the story continues in 5.4. In addition, the XP required to level from 85 to 90 is being reduced by 33% in patch 5.3. If you’re looking to level and gear up alts, patch 5.3 may be a good time to do so with these additional options.

Between all of these sources, an adventurous player should be should be able to walk right into the Raid Finder Throne of Thunder within a week or two of hitting level 90, even without touching any of the mainland reputations.

Content ilvl Requirements

ilvl 440 required for Heroic dungeons

ilvl 460 required for Mogu’shan Vaults

ilvl 470 required for Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring

ilvl 480 required for Throne of Thunder

Gearing for Throne of Thunder

XP required to level from 85-90 reduced by 33% in patch 5.3

ilvl 440 required for Heroic dungeons. Quest rewards from Townlong Steppes as well as Dread Wastes will bring you up to 440. It may be worthwhile to begin these zones earlier in the leveling process

At 90 head to the Isle of Thunder and progress through the quests each day and hunt for a Key to the Palace of Lei Shen each week. The portal to the Isle can be found at the Shado-Pan Garrison in western Townlong Steppes

Lesser Charms of Good Fortune can be exchanged at your faction’s shrine in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms for Mogu Runes of Fate. Mogu Runes provide bonus rolls for 5.2 bosses including those in the Throne of Thunder, and world bosses Oondasta and Nalak

Battlegrounds With The Blues! 5/03/13

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Greetings Champions!

Once again the song of battle calls we Blizzard employees forth to the fields of honor! Who will accept the challenge and test their might against ours!? (/rp)

Tomorrow (5/3/13) from 4pm-6pm PST we'll be logging onto the PTR realms and queuing for 5.3's new battleground Deepwind Gorge.

We'll be identified by the guilds [Blizzard Horde] & [Blizzard Alliance]. So come on to the PTRs, queue up for Deepwind Gorge, and be hungry for a fight.

Hope to see you there!

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Scenarios and DungeonsWhy is Blizzard pushing scenarios so much? Think of the amount of dungeons they could have made in this time.
Scenarios are far quicker to create than dungeons. They don't just rely on specific class balance among other things. So, the time it would have taken to create a single new dungeon is much greater than most realize. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Death Match BattlegroundBattle grounds have always been missing an important part of world pvp.... PvP. Make it like a big arena but not so big that people can't hide. 10 to 15 players forced into all out pvp. First to so many kills or 10 minutes, whichever comes first, wins the round.

No need to even create an area for it. Just make a copy of Blackrock mountain in an instance.
What you're asking for is a straight Death Match type of Battleground. I'm not sure it would be compelling as you think. I'm a big fan of DM as well, at least in FPS', but for an MMO like World of Warcraft, I question how enjoyable it would be in the long run for people. I think for players who feel very comfortable with their abilities, straight head on PvP like that would be fun for them, but for others, I'm not sure it would have the same appeal.

That said, I'm not killing the discussion. I'm just interested in how you feel this would work or appeal to a wide enough audience for it to be worth creating.

I think Southshore/Tarren Mill speak to it being desired. But that's gone now.
People forget that Southshore/Tarren Mill occurred because there were no battlegrounds at the time. It was "the place to go" if you wanted mass amounts of faction vs. faction PvP. I remember, I was there. I also remember hoping a spell would go off in time.

As much as I'd love to believe everyone loves PvP, it's not true. That said though, I think World of Warcraft has managed to introduce PvP to more people who may have never tried it before. This is a good thing. Creating interesting PvP encounters is important for continuing to keep people interested in it though. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Spectral Guise Side Effect
Coming back to this one quickly; Spectral Guise removing a player from combat is not entirely a bug, but more of an unfortunate side-effect that's caused by the way the spell functions in order to accomplish particular tasks. We are fine that this perk is available through Spectral Guise and have no plans at this time to change the way the spell works.

We're aware that the tooltip is currently incorrect in its current state and are looking to update it in an upcoming patch, however this will not be until patch 5.4 at the soonest. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Ghostcrawler on Tri Spec
More replies today to the Tri Spec tweet from yesterday!

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

All the classes already feel the same thanks to you.
We try to strike a balance between the demands for "I need X tool that the other guy has" and classes still feeling cool. (Source)

Specs should be saveable, e.g. equip sets. Keep talents, glyphs, action bars. Limit could then be set to 3, 4, 5 w/e
Yeah, we think an approach like that would take the hassle out of it. (Source)

Could you explain the logic behind tri-spec diminishing class uniqueness? more choices = more variety.
You no longer think of your friend as a Feral or a Balance druid. She is just a druid who can fill any role just like any druid. (Source)

If you were really serious about this statement, a character would be permanently limited to 2 of the 3 specs.
The intent of letting you remake choices was never supposed to be "I can swap to anything at a moment's notice." (Source)
It was supposed to be "I made a decision that now I really regret and wish I could make over." (Source)
I do worry sometimes that dual spec solved a problem (talent points were a pain to rebuy) that no longer exists. (Source)

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

World Boss Kill Status
We are aware of the request and looking to add a way for characters to track which world boss had already been defeated in a given week. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

CharacterHey! Sorry if this has been asked before, but there was talk about letting us hide weapon enchant glows iirc. Idea scrapped?
Not scrapped. Just not sure yet on the right design. It gets into the issue of weapon transmog pretty quickly. (Source)

I don't understand why rings are unique-equipped, is it too game breaking to have two of the same kind? Any plans to change?
You only get so many gear slots, so chasing the same BiS piece for two just removes some of the gearing options / opportunities. (Source)That's understandable, but going for BiS is completely optional and nothing something all players do, I'm no expert but...
Unfortunately, we find the opposite. Many players expect BiS and even consider the second place item to be "garbage." (Source)

I like the new talent system but it makes leveling kinda unrewarding. Long stretches where you get nothing.
Agree. (Source)

As a corollary, that mean healers lacking mitigation should actually be leading "meters", Yet, the opposite is true.
Most players would do well to compare their own performance night to night and stop worrying about what everyone else does. (Source)Either remove the ability of HPS meters/WoL to work,or balance the game around it.Cant change everyone's minds
Neither of those seems like a reasonable response to misinterpretation of data. (Source)

Do you feel that the shared achievements have worked out for 10 and 25 man raiding? Any plans for the future?
We think shared is fine, but it would be nice to be able to determine which version someone earned the achievement in. (Source)

ClassesDruid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Buff Naturalist another 10% please, resto druids are bottom of logs in pve and burst pvp far outstrips resto driuds heals
Logs aren't a great way to measure healing done. Just as one example, PW:Barrier doesn't show up while Tranq does. (Source)

Why are shaman and druids doing so poorly this expansion in pve healing?
We think shaman are fine. We think druid hots get trumped a lot by absorbs, esp. paladin and Disc's. 5.3 changes should help. (Source)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Just witnessed some major BrM hate in LFR lost 2 perfectly fine tanks because of their lower health pool, so many hate on BrM
That's just a weird perception. Brewmasters can tank anything. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Eternal Flame blanketing with paladin mastery is so strong. Why not revert the mastery nerf and make EF HoT not stack mastery.
We buffed EF just before release and have regretted it ever since. (Source)
Mastery was too strong regardless, but longer-term we don't want EF to be the only choice for Holy. (Source)Could you follow up with a why? EF(in a 25h raid) implies much greater skill then keeping up SS+using LoD
Eternal Flame has like 90%+ use for Holy. That means they effectively lose a talent choice. If some used SS then it would be fine. (Source)Keep in mind: to drop EF for SS, LoD needs to be viable. It's not good enough atm.
LoD just has to beat WoG, which it does. Eternal Flame is the problem. It lets Holy become a Resto druid and a Disc priest. (Source)

I think retri pala still needs some special/unique ability to be picked up for "serious" games in pvp. What do you think?
Not crazy about the idea of 34 unique abilities to ensure that every spec gets picked up for PvP. Just feels like an arms race. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)Was Rain if Fire intended to be part of Destruction single target rotation? Any plans to change it? Sorry if it's a repeat q
Not crazy about it. We don't want to change it for 5.3 in the middle of a tier, but maybe 5.4. We could buff embers in other ways. (Source)An idea I had was to make RoF only generate embers if it hits at least 3 targets. What do you think about that?
Something like that would be fine. Just need to make sure single target ember generation doesn't feel too slow. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)That's irrelevant. People use Heroic Leap as a gap closer and not for it's DPS, especially with the nerf to the glyph.
If they're using it as a gap closer, then they don't need to worry about minimum range. (Source)